John Lennon’s ‘In His Own Write’: 51 Sneers After the Pact
“I used to hide my real emotions in gobbledegook, like In His Own Write.”
— John Lennon
It was 51 years ago today (or last month), Sgt. Lennon taught the words to play. Having been invited by Jonathan Cape Publishers in Britain and Simon and Schuster in America to assemble snippets of his signature quirky poetry and prose for a 81-page glimpse into the mind of a Beatle, John stepped up to the task. The result was In His Own Write, a slender volume of Lennon-speak that was heralded as reminiscent of James Joyce, James Thurber, Lewis Carroll, and Edgar Lear.
It seemed, back then, to be some of those things. But for those who know John Lennon best and have studied his life and career for the last five decades, it has emerged as none of those things. For John Lennon’s literary language is his and his alone — a distinctive mélange created by his rich Liverpudlian heritage and his solitary life story.
Without a doubt, In His Own Write is uniquely Scouse; John dabbles in the dark, double-entendre that belongs to Merseyside. Wry and slicing, In His Own Write is a lark and a “larf,” but it owns a latent, bitter bite for which Scouse comedians (like Jimmy Tarbuck) were always famous.
More importantly, however, John’s poetry and prose reflect his soul’s despair. His musings appear light and airy at first glimpse. But considered, they reveal themselves to be the lonely lexis of a betrayed and deserted genius. They are underpinned by “a sadness too deep for words” (as John once explained himself to his mate, Stu Sutcliffe).
Much later, in “Strawberry Fields Forever,” John penned, “No one, I think, is in my tree. I mean, it must be high or low.” And that is the case with In His Own Write. No one else, it seems, thinks or writes like John Lennon, and he realizes it. He is singularly and dramatically unique. Alone.
And so, in the months following the release of In His Own Write, although many people purchased the book, few people “got it.” His work either captivated critics for the wrong reasons or alienated his audience. People were either drawn to the successful Beatle or repelled by the scathing satirist that was Lennon. Few understood the personal grief and depression lurking beneath the fanciful exterior of John’s jaunty poems and snarky stories.
Even Paul McCartney (his writing partner and comrade but not always his closest confidante) wrote in the book’s introduction, “…if it seems funny, then that’s enough.” Nothing could have been farther from the truth. And for the rest of the world in 1964, “nonsensical” was the word most often applied to John’s first book.
Partly because he was a Beatle, the March 1964 reviews were quite good:
“Worth the attention of anyone who fears for the impoverishment of the English language and the British imagination.”
—The Times Literary Supplement
“[Features] a wit and love of words that recall[s] Joyce and fanciful drawings some compare to Thurber.”
—Hartford Courant (Connecticut)
“A quirky, funny collection of stories, poems and drawings.”
—The New York Times
These critiques, though lush, said not a word about the poignancy and melancholy lurking in this volume of verbal leapfrog. Not a peep.
And when John was awarded the 1963-64 Foyles Literary Award for excellence, nothing was said in his introduction at the Dorchester Hotel about his being a voice for those who mourn. Lennon’s work was considered obtuse and comical. Not a single reviewer mentioned the pathos with which John imbued every written line.
Consider this selection from Lennon’s work:
“There was no reason for Michael to be sad that morning (the little wretch); everyone liked him (the scab). He’d had a hard day’s night that day for Michael was a Cocky Watchtower. His wife Bernie, who was well controlled, had wrabbed his norman lunch but he was still sad. It was strange for a man whom have everything and a wife to boot.”
— From “Sad Michael”
Or this one:
“It was Chrisbus time, but Randolph was all alone. Where were all his good pals…Randolph looged sagly at his only Chrispbut cart from his Dad who did not live there.”
— From “Randolph’s Party”
Similarly, read “Victor Triumphs Again and Mrs. Weatherby Learns a Lesson” or “I Sat Belonely” or “Unhappy Frank,” and you’ll find John Lennon’s world populated with people who are disliked and distrusted, who live outside the norm, and who teeter on the very rim of acceptability.
And likewise, Lennon’s single-line drawings depict a world of hunchbacks, the grotesque, the unshapely naked, and the physically challenged. John’s world is a graphic world of ostracized human beings whose anthems are most assuredly “Nowhere Man” and “I’m A Loser.”
Fifty-one years ago, John Lennon told us through his songs and his first book that he was “a moldy, moldy man — moldy thru and thru,” and we didn’t hear him. So I wondered, after all this time, if readers were able to hear him now? Curious to find out, I scanned the book reviews of In His Own Write on goodreads.com. This is what I found:
“It’s a lot of cheeky nonsense based on misspellings birthing second-tier puns…”
— Billy
“The wordplay is fun; the drawings are amusingly silly…”
— Frederick
“I enjoyed the parts I could understand…It just seems a frivolous, little ditty of a book.”
— Dineah
“I am a John Lennon fan… but this is complete crap. If you think that this book is any good, I bet you like the cut and colour of the Emperor’s New Clothes, too.”
— John
So, as enlightened as we’d like to think we are in 2015, little has changed. We are still missing the point.
Lennon — in his songs and literary endeavors — never ceases to tell us who he is. It’s a tacit pact made with his listener, and John never deviates from it. He is, ever and always, the little boy with the broken heart, the child whose parents (for complicated reasons) didn’t want him, the young man who stumbled faux-arrogantly about with a broken heart. And he tells us so.
In His Own Write, therefore, has much more to offer than verbal flirtations and dark humor. It is an intimate glimpse into John’s complicated psyche. And whatever it is, In His Own Write is not nonsense. It is a serious work.
Let me give you one more example. In light of what we know about John’s yearning for his mother, Julia (“Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you, Julia,” John sang on The White Album) consider this line from “Henry and Harry”:
“’Mother, Mother, it’s me, teenage young Henry. I’m home,’ he said, hoping to be noticed. But hag mother just kept on digging as if she had not noticed him, and she hadn’t.”
Here, we glimpse not “teenage Henry” but “teenage John,” the adolescent who desperately formed the Quarrymen and then dedicated his life to achieving “the toppermost of the poppermost,” only to prove to Julia (and in part to his father Fred and his Aunt Mimi) that he was smart enough and valuable enough — that he was worthy of the love they never gave him. “Henry and Harry” is a biographical revelation, couched in the caustic sneers and jests that were so common to writer John Lennon.
There are so many other moments within In His Own Write in which John drops the guise of “clever Beatle” and becomes the sad, young man who had to “hide his love away.” In this first work poetry and prose, John stands before us, revealing his heart.
But these intimate disclosures will not be found with a quick, cursory read. Lennon’s book must be studied and taken quite seriously. Like “Partly Dave,” John has the “gift of gob,” and he uses it as a smoke screen for the secrets he shares. However, knowing what we now know, “51 sneers after the pact,” we can find the real John Lennon in his pages. If lonely we wield try.
